Prologue

Giotto, an 18 year old student lived a remote life. The only excitement was his best friend Ximena, a foreign exchange student from Peru. They had only known each other for 4 months but instantly clicked. Giotto was one of the only students from sector 8 that had spoken Spanish and Ximena, not yet knowing how to speak Italian, took a liking to him and annoyed him into a friendship. Before her, Giotto had no friends. He spent most of his time working on his studies and with the little free time he had, obsessing with the history of the 7 Iwa. The 7 Iwa were mythical stones that many say came down from the heavens onto humans and chose those who best fitted holding the stones from each of earth's continents. The 7 Iwa held powers that could be given to the human coming from mostly earth's natures, fire, water, earth, air, shadow, lightning and corruption. They were last seen in what is known as "the final battle" when 5 of the last chosen fought the man who had no name, and who held 2 of the 7 Iwa. With the combined forces of the 5 chosen, they were able to defeat the man who had no name but in result caused the stones to consume 3/4ths of the earth's population or what the people call the wipe. The 7 Iwa have never been seen again. 

CHAPTER 1: Courage

Southern Italy. Winter. 2043.

Monday, January 10th, 2043.

Giotto was excited for his winter break, but he was more excited for his school field trip that day. He was finally going to be let in to see the "ancient scrolls'' of the chosen ones. The writings of the first to hold the Iwa. He woke up and instantly called Ximena. They conversed over the 7 Iwa exhibit, Giotto showing much more excitement than Ximena. He was excited to learn more about the scroll of the corruption Iwa, while she was just excited to see him. Although she never expressed it, Ximena had fallen in love with Giotto a month into meeting him. It may have been that he was the only person she had that spoke Spanish, the way he walked with his hands always in his pockets, or always listening to the same K-pop album on repeat. But there was something about him that she couldn't resist. He asked if she had wanted to get some food after the field trip. As ecstatic as Ximena was, she had planned a video call with her mother for that evening. She asked to reschedule but today was the last time Giotto would have some free time before he had to study for his finals. "Maybe during winter break?" he said. Ximena then giggled and agreed. Giotto then hung up and began to get dressed. He chose to pack his headphones as well, due to having some audio books explaining the scrolls. He left his house and started walking to school when he saw a trashcan on fire with some homeless people surrounding it. It had been a cold winter and he couldn't help but feel bad for the homeless people having to sleep in such harsh conditions. He noticed one had nothing but a t-shirt and decided to give him his "I love NY" hoodie his mother had gotten him last year when she took a trip to New York. "No! I can't! You're going to freeze!" Said the homeless man. Giotto responded "Don't worry, my school is only one block away and I'll be inside most of the day anyways." The homeless man smiled and said "You're something else, thank you again." Giotto smiled back and proceeded to walk to school. Once arriving at the gates Ximena ran up behind him and put her hands over his eyes. "Guess who?" she said. Giotto, with a straight face replied "the only friend I have." Ximena laughed, "and I'm all you'll ever need!" She then ran next to him and stared him up and down while they walked to the bus that was taking them to the Iwa exhibit. "Why are you only wearing a t-shirt?! You're going to get sick! How stupid could you possibly be!?" she said. "Relax, I'll be fine. I gave it to a homeless man, they're all freezing out there and no ones helping them at all. You'd think with 3/4ths of the population being wiped there wouldn't be anyone on the streets anymore." Ximena's eyes went soft and had a look on her face like she had just seen her first ever sunset. She then hugged him "I love how much you care for others." Giotto, not hugging her back, said "Get off me, it's not that serious. Let's hurry. I don't wanna miss the bus, this exhibit is the highlight of my year." "It wasn't meeting me?" Ximena said with a giant grin on her face. "... Like I said, this exhibit is the highlight of my year, now let's go!" He said with a straight face. They walked the rest of the way, got onto the bus and waited to leave. Giotto and Ximena's professor then counted all the student's on board, the bus driver went over the safety rules, and they were on their way to the exhibit. Once arriving the teacher began to explain the trip but before she could finish Giotto grabbed Ximena's hand and ran inside. 

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Once inside Giotto couldn't help but to run around and explain everything he and Ximena were looking at. Ximena, being kind of annoyed, asked him "You love looking at all this stuff but what about me? Am I something you're interested in?" Giotto ignored her and said "FUCK! There is so much to look at. Come on! Hurry!" With an extremely annoyed face she chased after Giotto as he ran through all the different rooms with artifacts related to the 7 Iwa."Look, the scroll of the corrupted. The first chosen had contact with all the Iwa and drew them out on this page! They say that the first chosen also received the corrupted Iwa and went insane after months of trying to contain it's powers. Legend says that he ended up eating it and it blew him to pieces from the inside out! Isn't that crazy?" claimed Giotto. Ximena, with a very silent voice said "The only thing crazy here is how you don't pay attention to me even when I clearly wore a top two sizes too small so you would look at me for once." Giotto, already on the other side of the room, yelled "Ximena come over here it's the fire scroll!" He gazed at the scroll when suddenly the crowd in the other room let out a loud woah. He quickly ran to the room, as Ximena tried to catch up. As he pushed himself into the front of the crowd he saw what he had been fantasizing over for months. The first weapons the chosen had binded the Iwa to. The staff of air used to create tornados from the winds of the sky, the gloves of earth that could control the ground underneath them, the fire bow that could shoot out flames hotter than the sun, the water spear that could control the oxygen and hydrogen in the air to form water and control the oceans, and the lightning wrist braces that could summon the strikes from the heavens down to earth. "Ximena, I think I'm going to cry." said Giotto with pure amazement in his face. Ximena, angered from him running around everywhere said, "They don't even have the Iwa in them anymore and they don't even have the entire collection of weapons, these are literally the lamest ones, and you're going to cry over this?" "Shut up" Giotto said with a soft voice as he stared up at the weapons the first chosen used to protect the earth from all who had mal intent.

After the exhibit the bus took all the students back to the school, Giotto couldn't stop talking about everything they saw to Ximena as they walked towards the front gate. "Imagine all that information in those scrolls but no one to use it! I can't believe the 7 Iwa haven't been found yet again." Ximena replied "Well it has been over 200 years since the wipe. They're probably gone all together." Giotto sighed "probably, but the shadow, and corruption weapons did go missing only 20 years ago. Maybe the Iwa chose someone and they stole the first chosen weapons in order to use them!" "Or maybe someone just stole them to make a quick buck on the black market." she said with a smart-ass tone. Giotto, obviously looking disappointed, said "you're probably right." They then said their goodbyes as they reached the gate and went their separate ways. 

As Giotto was on his way home he couldn't stop thinking in his head "there's no way that all the Iwa are gone, they've been around for so long! How could they just vanish. Then again... there hasn’t been a sign of any new chosen since the final battle 200 years ago... maybe they are all gone." Suddenly he heard a girl scream in an alleyway next to him. "Someone! Help!" exclaimed the lady that Giotto could now see as he turned towards the alley. Two men had been harassing the women trying to take her away from their current environment. "Come on bitch! Quit screaming, if you’ll just be a good little girl we'll promise to make this quick" said one of the two men as the other began to unclothe her. Giotto ran towards the backs of the men and kicked one of them straight to the floor. The man still standing yelled at him and punched his face into the ground. The man began kicking him while he was down and the other getting up to join in on the beating. As Giotto could see the lady run, he slowly started losing his vision and was going unconscious. "Why do I even bother to help others?" he let out as he was still being brutally beaten by the two men. Suddenly a loud crackle sound came from the sky, lightning crashed at the exact sight of Giotto causing the two men beating him up, to be knocked back and go unconscious. As he opened his eyes more, he could feel his body burning and his head still spinning. As he was lying on the ground in a fetal position he turned his head to see what happened. He noticed the two men knocked unconscious next to him and could feel something inside of his right, balled up hand. He opened his hand and as he moved his head downward he gasped with a loud breath. "There's just no way...".